


you hold my head underwater and I say I want you.

by theweakestthing



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Overdosing, Post-Canon, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24591298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweakestthing/pseuds/theweakestthing
Summary: There were memories of Theo littered all over the apartment: dirty tissues in the tin trash can in his bedroom, a ratty old paperback left open pressed down into the coffee table, light hairs in the drain, the last dregs of coffee left at the bottom of a cup on the kitchen counter, the blanket he’d sweated into discarded on the couch, his scent clung to the bed sheets, the ruin of his shoulder that was slowly turning to a thin shiny scar. Little echoes of Theo’s presence were everywhere. Boris couldn’t bring himself to get rid of them and most especially not the letter that was still tucked in his coat pocket.
Relationships: Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 4
Kudos: 83





	you hold my head underwater and I say I want you.

**Author's Note:**

> Of course I had to write a suicide note fic. It was my birthday last week and I got Crush by Richard Siken, so I read that in one go because I'm gay and then my hands just started typing and this is what happened, enjoy i guess~~~

The grey light that shone through the window was bright and harsh as it bounced off the snow outside, blinding Boris where he sat feeling woefully sorry for himself. Theo had only been gone for a couple of hours and Boris already felt the absence as though he’d lost a limb.

All the things he wished he had said, all the things he knew would ruin everything if he ever said them out loud, they filled his mouth and filled his mind until he felt half crazed with his inept romance.

He stood in the shower, like so many times before, fingers crawling down his skin. Boris closed his eyes and pretended to be someone else. The water rushed over him and he pretended that his hand was Theo’s, he had felt it so many times before but as a child and the memory felt so far away and disconnected. He painted the walls and the water washed it away. Hopes and dreams sliding down the drain, sticking to his cum as it clogged with his hair, caught in the drain like his old shame.

Boris had tried to say it all without saying anything at all. He said by looking after that painting as though it was Theo’s heart that had been wrapped in newspaper and hidden behind the headboard. He said it with the way he had come back to fulfil a near decade old promise. It was in the way he’d tried to show Theo a good time, a small nod to the old days, as though only a moment had passed since they had said their goodbyes on a Las Vegas road, hearts beating against the asphalt. It was in the way he had pulled Theo out of his sad and decaying life, the way he’d led Theo out of that party, neither of them belonged there anyway. It was there in how he’d involved Theo almost every step of the way and protected him from the worst of it. A little bit of smoke and mirrors had never hurt either of them. It was clear in the way they had come together, unable to keep their hands to themselves when they stood over the painting now back in their possession. And it had never been clearer than it was in that moment of life and death, when he had pled with Theo to run.

Theo hadn’t run and Boris had never felt more loved.

He did what he could, he put everything right and came back, and then he put Theo right. And Theo had left. It was almost like the last time, just without the kiss goodbye. Instead there were memories of Theo littered all over the apartment: dirty tissues in the tin trash can in his bedroom, a ratty old paperback left open pressed down into the coffee table, light hairs in the drain, the last dregs of coffee left at the bottom of a cup on the kitchen counter, the blanket he’d sweated into discarded on the couch, his scent clung to the bed sheets, the ruin of his shoulder that was slowly turning to a thin shiny scar. Little echoes of Theo’s presence were everywhere. Boris couldn’t bring himself to get rid of them and most especially not the letter that was still tucked in his coat pocket.

It was another piece of Theo that he had to hold onto, and this one he wouldn’t be forced to pass to others. Reading it was almost out of the question. It didn’t matter what was written on the paper inside the envelope, it only mattered that Theo had gone to the effort to write something to him.

It was a telltale heart not quite hidden in the discarded coat which was lying in a heap on his bedroom floor. His fingers twitched with the urge to rip it open. Pulse pounding as he consumed the words like a man starved half to death, and he would devour Theo’s penmanship. He left the letter and the coat where it was until he had to leave again. It was easier to leave when the apartment stopped smelling like Theo.

Living to survive another day, living so he could meet the night with the subdued triumph of someone who never expected to see the end of the day, living so he could wake in the morning and do it all again. It was the same life he’d always lived. Moving from city to city, country to country, job to job. A constant and never ending cycle that made up what little of him there was to call a life. Doing drugs to escape, drinking to fall asleep, doing drugs to feel something that wasn’t the familiar throbbing ache that’d kept him company since he was fifteen, drinking to wash it away, doing drugs to stop feeling.

He called Astrid and she didn’t pick up, just as well, there wasn’t anything he could say to her that would change anything. Boris had his chance and he hadn’t changed anything. He didn’t call Theo.

He didn’t call Theo because he knew he would pick up.

Boris almost regretted everything he’d said out loud, wishing that he had said anything else to Theo. What could he have said though? Anything that came out of his mouth would have soured Theo’s mood, his shame stronger than Boris’ would throttle him and stop him from reaching out or even leaning toward Boris, that was until he was drunk or high or both. Under the cover of vices as excuses, Theo’s chains were loosened. Boris could see that it was still true even all these years later and through the short amount of time they had spent together. Brushing barely there touches that promised more.

Those promises had been broken by the things that came between them. When they were younger it was the fear of their parents, the fear of their peers, and the fear of facing themselves and seeing something that everyone seemed to hate, the fear of facing each other in the daylight, the fear of a rejection that they both knew wasn’t coming. Now, in their adulthood, it was the fear of facing all these wasted years, of validating feelings that had long been denied, of facing the fact that they had built their lives on fragile lies, the fear of looking at each other and seeing what they had always known was there and mourning the loss of what could have been. The lives they lived came between them and there wasn’t much of anything that either of them could do about that.

It was these fears that kept Boris from opening the letter too.

* * *

Boris had OD’d. Myriam had found him foam mouthed and blue lipped on the couch, needle still in his arm, bare feet on the arm rest and his eyes rolled back into his head. He was lucky to be alive. He was unlucky to be alive. He woke up in the hospital. The florescent lights stung his eyes and the sheets beneath him were thin and scratchy. It was one hell of a way to wake up.

The IV itched. The track marks itched. Myriam was watching him as he tried not to scratch himself out of his skin. She didn’t say a thing, and Boris appreciated her silence, this was all a part of her job anyway.

They kept him for observation over night and then they let him go. Still an addict, still a mess, but not dead and he supposed that was good enough for them.

Back in the hotel room, the TV was still on, playing the news in one of the few languages he didn’t speak. He avoided the couch and went straight for the bed.

It was a different room, a different building, a different city and a different country but his coat was pooled on the floor just the same as it had been in Antwerp. Boris considered it for a moment. He could die, any time really, and he would never know what Theo had written. He would never know and that might be worse. Whatever Theo wrote, no matter what it said, no matter how the words eviscerated him, it would still be better than the empty expanse that lied between them.

He tore open the envelope, elbows on his knee as he sat on the edge of the bed. With shaking hands he unfolded the letter. Theo’s usually tight and girlish script was scrawled and jumbled, letters bumping into each other, he clearly hadn’t been in his right mind when he’d written it. Boris’ hungry eyes raked over the words as he read.

_Boris._

_I don’t know if this will even reach you, but I don’t think I’m really writing this for you. I think I’m writing this for me, so that before I go I can finally admit everything you and I already know even if it’s just to myself._

_You know, you have to know because I’m sure you always did. Back then and now. You know that I’ve always wanted to die, ever since I lost my mother, I’ve always wanted to die. Just to see her again, just to make it all stop. It wasn’t about you. You’re all that stopped me from spilling my guts out in the desert, skull cracked against the concrete on the edge of pool, bones shattered and twisted from jumping out the window, body crushed under the wheels of a car. I want to die now, just like always. I tried before. Curled around the toilet, vomiting on the tiles. Trying to see my mom again. I’m trying now. And if you’re dead, then I guess I’ll see you too, I think that might be better than living to see you alive again._

_And you know that’s not what I wanted to say. I’ve never said it, not to you, and when I say it to other people I know don’t mean it. I don’t mean it because there’s nothing that makes me feel like you do._

_When you’re around I feel like the centre of the universe is between us, and it’s pulling us together, pulling and pulling until we collide. When you’re around my skin breaks, it feels oily, slick and I can barely stand to be in it. When you’re around I lose my will, when you’re around I throw it away. When you’re around I become who I really am and it makes my soul ache._

_The mess I’ve made just to get here._

_All this writing just to say something you already know._

_I love you,_

_Only you,_

_Always you._

_Yours,_

_Theo._

It hardly made sense, but it made all the sense in the world to Boris. He didn’t know he was crying until it started to splatter the page. His breath was shaky and it caught in his throat as he tried not to openly sob, hiding from no one but himself; hand over his mouth just to keep the sound in. He couldn’t stop his eyes from reading the letter twice over again. Eventually he got up the nerve to fold it away and pull his phone out of his jacket, his fingers made jerky movements as they swiped over the screen.

With a sniffle of his nose, Boris brought a plane ticket, one way for the next day.

* * *

Boris didn’t dither in front of the store, he didn’t wait to see whether or not Theo was there, he stepped up to the door and walked straight through. Thankfully the store was empty besides Theo who was sat behind the counter with a beaten paperback bent in his hands. Their eyes met in an instant.

The way Theo looked at him, restrained hope and excitement, Boris almost lost his nerve. Boris never lost his nerve. If he hadn’t read the letter, if he hadn’t almost died, then maybe they could have had one hell of a night. Reckless abandon. But he had read the letter because he’d almost died and he needed to talk to Theo about it.

He turned and turned the sign on the door around so that ‘we’re open’ faced him before he made his way over to Theo. Boris’ body ached to embrace the other man. He wanted to wrap his arms around Theo and never let go. Instead, he held the letter out between them and spoke as Theo went sheet white.

“We have a lot to talk about,” Boris managed, staring up into Theo’s slack shocked face.

He followed Theo in the house. If it were any other time, Boris would have been looking out for Popchyk or he would have asked about the dog at least, but that could wait. They moved into Theo’s room. Sparse and depressing, exactly what Boris had expected. Theo sat on the bed. The lonely bed that he’d spent the last decade in, sleeping alone simply because Boris wasn’t there.

Boris sat beside Theo. He wondered if Theo’s was going to invent terrors just to draw him closer, or if he’d pull real ones out of the closet to push him away, or if he’d finally, fucking finally, say what they both already knew.

Instead he said “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“But I did,” Boris said, hand placed on the mattress palm up between them, “I came back from the dead for you,” he added, trying not to flex his fingers, eyes on Theo all the while as he referenced the letter.

“You weren’t dead,” Theo said, shaking his head as he stared down at Boris’ hand.

“You thought I was, may as well have been for all you knew,” Boris returned. It was hard to keep his voice even, he tried to keep the softness he wanted to wrap around Theo deep in his throat.

“It’s fine Boris, I didn’t do it,” Theo said and took Boris’ hand, “I’m here,” fingers sliding together, thumb over Boris’ knuckles.

“You are here, Potter, but for how long?” Boris asked, it hurt to look at Theo but he wouldn’t look away. “I can’t be here to stop you, not in Vegas anymore,” he added, thinking of Dorothy and a state he’d never been to.

“Boris, you haven’t been here at all,” Theo said, voice soft and eyes tight as they tried to hide any and all emotion, “you weren’t there,” he added mechanically.

Boris always thought that they were coming at each other from opposite directions. Theo was always struggling to show his feelings, struggling against the chains he’d wrapped around himself, struggling to break the surface and throw his voice out of the water. Boris, himself, was always trying not to show his feelings, trying to smother the flames singeing his hands. The words were forever on the tip of his tongue and it’d just take a breath for him to say them.

“I almost died,” Boris said, shucking off his jacket to roll up the sleeve of his shirt, “just like you said, is bad habit to have, dangerous,” he went on when Theo didn’t say anything, exposing the angry track marks puckered in the crease of his elbow.

“What?” Theo said, his brows rose above the frame of his glasses and shot up his forehead, his hand recaptured Boris around the forearm. His eyes bore into the flesh of Boris’ arm. “You OD’d?” He asked, though he didn’t have to, bright light eyes staring into Boris’ face.

He nodded.

“Luckily Myriam found me,” Boris worked the words out, they felt like taffy in his mouth, “woke up in hospital, drip in back of my hand, nurse telling me I was very lucky to be alive and she was very quick to kick me out,” he went on, bitter smile twisted crooked across his mouth, hoping to push the sadness out of Theo’s eyes.

“You nearly died,” Theo said, stunned, as though he couldn’t believe Boris’ nonchalance. Fingers flexing around Boris’ arm as he spoke.

“So did you,” Boris returned, head tilted toward Theo, “many times, me only once,” he added, flicking his hand out as he gestured between them.

“That’s a fucking lie,” Theo spat with a roll of his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter, am here now and so are you Potter,” Boris said with a shrug, fingers itching to light a cigarette or do something else that Theo would make a fuss about. He dropped his hand over Theo’s.

“And you’re here why? Because you nearly died and read a letter I didn’t want or intend for you to read?” Theo asked, turning to anger like he always did when he didn’t want to show what he was actually feeling. He tore away from Boris, though he didn’t move from the bed.

“Because I didn’t want to wait another eight years to see you again,” Boris said, not rising to the bait, too smart to meet Theo’s anger since it’d come from almost nowhere.

“You could have shown up any time before,” Theo said, teeth showing as he struggled to keep up the charade of a false emotion.

“Would you have been here?” Boris asked, one brow quirked as he cocked his head to the side, “thought you were going around, righting wrongs and chasing red head,” he went on, smacking Theo lightly on the shoulder, he left his hand there and let his thumb slide over the expensive fabric of Theo’s blazer.

“The thing with Hobie’s changelings is settled,” Theo said, jaw set, ever present tension coiled tightly in his body.

“And with the red head?” Boris pushed despite how obvious it was that Theo was avoiding the subject.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Theo said, eyes skittering away from Boris as he swallowed.

“Why not?” Boris asked, brows pinched quizzically to hide the glee dancing in his eyes.

“I went to London,” Theo began, pulling away from Boris as he spoke, eyes on the wall opposite them. “I really thought that she just needed a little persuading, or something, but I think she made her mind up a long time ago and I was maybe years too late,” he rambled on, fingers pushed up under his glasses to rub at his eyes, when that didn’t help he plucked the glasses from his face and held them between his fingers. “Maybe I would have always been late, never the right time, always meeting wrong versions of each other that would never match.”

Maybe that was what had happened with them too. Meeting the wrong versions of each other that wouldn’t fit no matter how hard they tried. Boris shook his head, he couldn’t let himself fall into the same pessimism as Theo, where would that leave them? Maybe they were always the right versions, and maybe they would always fit, they just hadn’t been brave enough to see it.

“Such is life,” Boris said, arms swiping out wide before he captured Theo’s with both hands. When Theo didn’t turn back to him, Boris put his hands on the other’s face, cupping his cheeks and forcing Theo to look at him. “I wanted to come, all the time, but time was never right,” he said after a moment, thumbs rough against Theo’s cheekbones.

“And it’s right now?” Theo asked, brows tilted up as he stared back at Boris.

“When is better time than after coming back from dead?” Boris said watching Theo as the light trailed across his face.

It was dark. It wasn’t dark when they had sat down. Boris had only noticed it that moment because of the way the street lamp shone through the window and coated Theo in orange light, it softened his worn and rough edges. He watched Theo swallow, felt it through his fingertips. It was all the warning he got.

They collided in the dark, hands fumbling on buttons and zippers, mouths and teeth catching. Theo knelt over him. Thighs either side of Boris’ hips, hands smoothing down the planes of his torso, holding him down against the mattress, as though he was the one that always ran away.

Possessive hands traced over scars, both old and new, and Theo’s mouth followed. He paid special attention to the one on Boris’ shoulder. The only scar that Boris would happily claim again and again should time replay itself.

Theo’s glasses slid slowly down his nose, touching Boris’ nose as they kissed. He reached up, plucked them from Theo’s face and flung them across the room, they dropped somewhere out of sight and Theo didn’t complain. It would have been hard to with the way his tongue was sliding across Boris’ teeth.

Clothes shed and flung to the floor. Like the people they wished they could have but never would have been. Until there was nothing left but their skin.

Theo dropped down against him. Another collision. A car crash, their bodies strewn across the road, across the mattress, blood on the asphalt, teeth pulled blood up under the skin, gasoline in the air, the scent of sweat and Theo slid up his nose, a knee between his legs, glass in his hair, his fingers caught in Theo’s hair, hands shaking as they clutched each other. Limbs melding together, fluid between them, and when Boris kissed Theo’s knuckles this time it wasn’t blood he tasted.

With their bodies entwined it was hard to tell where one body started and the other ended. Boris liked it that way. He’d always wanted it to be that way, especially when they were kids. Back in Vegas it was easy to convince himself that they were one being, both of their bodies the physical extension of one soul. Everything he owned was Theo’s too and vice versa. Two minds, two hearts, but one soul at least as far as Boris was ever concerned.

Boris thought that if he didn’t say it, and now, then he’d never be able to breathe. Forever an asthmatic of the heart. Chest weighed down by his complicated and unending love for the man wrapped around him.

“Was always you too,” Boris murmured, fingers carding through Theo’s sweat slick hair, “only you,” lips against Theo’s wrist where the other’s hand was pressed to his face.

“You got married,” Theo said, almost accusingly.

“You were getting married too,” Boris returned, still softly petting Theo, as though he could hardly believe the other was there in his arms.

“Right, yeah,” Theo muttered, “fuck.”

“Yes,” Boris said, smiling, “fuck.”

“Are you still married?” Theo asked, voice edging toward sharp and Boris knew this would always bother Theo if they didn’t get it out of the way.

“Yes and no,” Boris said, head tilted slightly back as he moved his hand vaguely, “separated for years now.”

“Before Amsterdam?”

Boris nodded and watched as something relaxed in Theo’s face. Features smoothed out. Somehow that fact mattered a lot to Theo, as though his being separated from his wife changed anything that ha d transpired between them. He’d loved Theo before he’d met Astrid, he’d loved him while they were together, and he loved Theo now.

“Boris,” Theo murmured, voice suddenly rough, throat thick with some kind of feeling that he would have usually hid.

“Yes?”

“Don’t die,” Theo said, eyes shining in the darkness.

“You know, I would do anything, anything for you, but I am not master of death,” Boris said, smiling as he ran his thumb over Theo’s eyebrow, “would bring your mother back if I was,” he added and kissed Theo’s arm again.

“At least, don’t die before this has really started,” Theo went on, pretending that Boris’ words hadn’t affected him at all, though the shake in his voice sold him out.

“Think I can manage that,” Boris murmured as he softly shuffled forward, pressing his mouth Theo’s face, kissing whatever expanse of skin that he could reach until Theo was kissing back with renewed fervour. Making up for wasted time. Boris would spend whatever was left of his life making up for all the wasted time, years and distance between them, showing Theo how much he was loved.

He was a thief, through and through, but this was one thing he would not return. Even upon the threat of death or injury, Boris would never give back the heart that he had stolen.


End file.
